The Warrior Within

10

I was awake before everyone the next morning. I dressed quickly and quietly, leaving Faddan asleep in his furs, then went out into the pre-dawn stillness. The dark mass of seetarr were aware of me and I could feel their hunger, so I gathered up the leftovers of the last night’s meal and divided it among them. I gave a little extra to the barbarian’s mount, and the gigantic male rested his face on my shoulder as he chewed, thinking soothing thoughts at me. I stroked his neck awhile, letting him feel my gratitude, then turned back to the camp.

“How long have you been awake?” the barbarian asked softly as I stopped short to keep from running into him. His deep calm was back, and I hadn’t even felt it through the turmoil in my own mind.

“Not long,” I answered, dropping my eyes and starting to step around him. His hand touched my arm, and I was stopped. “No, I won’t run again.” I said, answering the question I knew was in his mind. “I gave my word and I’ll keep it.”

“The switching was too harsh,” he said, still touching my arm. “I would offer my apologies.”

I nodded without saying anything, feeling the way my throat burned, making it hard to swallow. There was no sense of apology or regret anywhere in him. His hand went down, and I continued on back to the camp.

The first rays of the sun were just beginning to put color back into everything when Doran appeared, looking radiantly happy. She hugged me in an effort to express the joy of her feelings, and I patted her arm in understanding. A minute later Faddan emerged from his camtah and she ran to him, throwing herself into his arms. He laughed softly and hugged her, and she nestled close to him.

“How passed the night, Faddan?” the barbarian asked conversationally as he handed out pieces of dimral to all of us. “My wenda treated you well?”

“Aye, denday,” Faddan answered, and I could feel his eyes on me where I stood, slightly off to one side. “I did not lack in the absence of Doran.”

“Good,” the barbarian said. “And what thought you of the special gift she brings to the furs?”

“Special gift?” Faddan echoed in con fusion. “My apologies, Tammad, but I saw no special gift.”

There was a giant surge in the barbarian, but he had control of it again before I could analyze it and he said, “Perhaps I am mistaken, Faddan. Her ways are still strange to me. Let us eat and seek the road once more.”

We all ate in silence, then Doran and I gathered up the things to be packed by the men. With the camtah rolled and tied in place we were ready, and Faddan put Doran behind his saddle before he mounted. The barbarian turned in his own saddle and put his arm out to me, but I knew where I belonged, where it was best for me to be.

“The day is clear,” I said, looking at the ground. “I am to walk in your track.”

He backed the seetar slightly, then leaned down to grasp my arm and swing me up to the saddle fur behind him.

“You are to do as you are bidden,” he answered evenly, but I could feel the anger toward me again. “You shall not walk when you are told to ride.”

His mind was made up, and there was nothing I could do about it. We moved off toward the road, Faddan and his seetarr going first. Doran held tightly to him, pressing herself as close as possible, indescribable contentment in her at the contact. I put my fingers in the barbarian’s swordbelt, and held on that way.

At sundown we made camp again, and I helped Doran with the animal Faddan had shot late in the day. She skinned the thing herself because I didn’t know how to, and I realized that skinning was supposed to be a woman’s job. There were a lot of things I didn’t know how to do, and the barbarian had had to do them all. No matter how I tried to deny it, I was helpless in the barbarian’s frame of reference, helpless and worthless. It was enough to make any able person want to avoid me completely and it was no wonder that the barbarian looked at me as he did.

When the meal was done, Faddan and Doran went happily to their camtah. There had been vegetables of some sort with the meat, and Doran had found them. I had merely washed them at her direction, then watched her wrap and place them beneath the fire. The men had been full of praise for both of us, but the accomplishment hadn’t been mine, so the praise hadn’t touched me.

I had wandered down to the seetarr again, and was assuring Tammad’s large male that I was fine, when I felt the barbarian near me. His usual calm had been interrupted by a flash of annoyance, and that had brought him to my attention. I sighed a little, wondering briefly what I had done this time, then turned to face him.

“It is time to be in one’s camtah, not among the shadows,” he said, looking down at me with no trace of the annoyance reaching his face. “Do you now come with me.”

I followed him without comment to the camtah, and then inside. He turned away to remove his swordbelt and haddin and when he turned back, he saw that I was already out of the imad and caldin. He hesitated briefly, strong control over his emotions, then he sat next to me on my furs.

“Read for me this man Faddan,” he said softly “Tell me what you see of him.”

So I was to be tested. Well, the notion wasn’t unreasonable, and I’d been close enough to Faddan long enough to have formed a few conclusions. I composed myself for serious work, and closed my eyes.

“Faddan is a strong man.” I reported, rechecking my data, “strong in his loyalties and strong in his beliefs. He is not as quick-tempered as some, and will use his anger rather than let it use him. He believes in you and is loyal to you, but does not fear you. His fears are well known to him and accepted by him, and are therefore manageable to him. He weighs both sides of a question before making up his mind, and would make a good leader, but needs someone to look up to.”

I opened my eyes, and could see his face pointed toward me, his attention sharp on every word I’d said.

“It is true;” he mused. “You know the man as I do, yet I have known him since we were boys together. Truly, your gift shall be of great value to me.”

He took me in his arms then, but I felt no satisfaction over the value I had to him. It was a value any Prime would have had, not a personal value. I made no effort to stop my desire from reaching him, and his satisfaction was so close to that of Faddan’s with Doran that I couldn’t tell them apart. Of course, he was only receiving my projections and building on them, but for the time I could tell myself that his feelings were his own. I knew then that I could never mean anything to him other than as a Prime, but at least I could pretend. I was his belonging, but he would never belong to me.